Research and Evaluation Specialist

Job Description

The New York City Department of Youth and Community Development (DYCD) invests in a network of community-based organizations (CBOs) to alleviate the effects of poverty and to provide opportunities for New Yorkers and communities to flourish. DYCD’s initiatives include COMPASS, the City’s comprehensive afterschool system, Beacon Community Centers, adult and youth literacy programs, youth employment programs, services for runaway and homeless youth, community safety programs, and community development programs.

DYCD also collaborates with other City agencies on a range of mayoral initiatives to improve City services and ensure greater opportunities for minority and immigrant youth and families.

This role would be situated within the Bureau of Planning, Program Integration, and Evaluation (PPIE). PPIE was established to lead DYCD’s efforts to transform the agency from-three co-located
organizations to one agency focused on providing an integrated network of neighborhood-based high quality services to New Yorkers.
PPIE's mission is to drive growth, impact, and innovation to make DYCD, its programs, and CBOs more effective. PPIE designs tools, builds processes and shapes policies to elevate the implementation of best practices and data-informed decision-making both internally and externally. PPIE supports continuous improvement through providing capacity building and training to DYCD staff and providers; analyzing and elevating data and community voices; increasing funding for innovation and expansion; and developing centralized approaches and systems to support a unified vision for DYCD.

PPIE's core functions have evolved over time into five robust centers of excellence:

Office of Analytics, Performance Management, and Reporting
Office of Capacity Building and Professional Development
Office of Planning, Program Design and Grant Development
Office of Evaluation
Office of System Integration

This role would be a part of the Office of System Integration, which plays a central role in designing
and updating DYCD’s data system to improve data collection, measurement of key metrics, and user
experience in DYCD systems.

Reporting to the Director of System Integration, the System Training Specialist will assume the below
responsibilities.

- Works closely with the Bureau of Information Technology (IT) to understand DYCD data systems and user needs to provide training for internal and external users, with a particular focus on new providers and staff from the COMPASS expansion.

- Acts as a liaison between program units, the system integration team, and IT to align training
schedules to development and program cycle timelines.

- Coordinate with external contracted training vendor to provide complementary trainings and assign trainings to efficiently utilize the agency’s resources.

- Conduct standard system trainings, including workscope submission, data entry, and monitoring, on DYCD Connect, DYCD’s system of record.

- Develop new trainings on specialized DYCD Connect functionality as needed to meet the needs of
program units, including new functionality developed as part of the COMPASS expansion.

- Understand and provide training for other DYCD systems as needed.

- Develop and maintain user guides and other materials to support system learning.

- Update DYCD’s document library to ensure accurate and appropriate documents are available to support providers’ system use.

- Create and edit asynchronous resources for training, including video tutorials and other multimedia
resources.

- Document and elevate user concerns and issues with data systems to improve system functionality.

- Utilize adult learning principles to increase user engagement in system trainings.

- Create mechanisms for user feedback on data systems and on system trainings to continue to improve system functionality and resource development.

- Develop communications and marketing strategies to build awareness of DYCD systems.

- Convene interagency workgroups to inform system training and policies.
- Other tasks as assigned.

CITY RESEARCH SCIENTIST - 21744

Qualifications

1. For Assignment Level I (only physical, biological and environmental sciences and public health) A master's degree from an accredited college or university with a specialization in an appropriate field of physical, biological or environmental science or in public health.
To be appointed to Assignment Level II and above, candidates must have:
1. A doctorate degree from an accredited college or university with specialization in an appropriate field of physical, biological, environmental or social science and one year of full-time experience in a responsible supervisory, administrative or research capacity in the appropriate field of specialization; or
2. A master's degree from an accredited college or university with specialization in an appropriate field of physical, biological, environmental or social science and three years of responsible full-time research experience in the appropriate field of specialization; or
3. Education and/or experience which is equivalent to "1" or "2" above. However, all candidates must have at least a master's degree in an appropriate field of specialization and at least two years of experience described in "2" above. Two years as a City Research Scientist Level I can be substituted for the experience required in "1" and "2" above.

NOTE:
Probationary Period
Appointments to this position are subject to a minimum probationary period of one year.

Additional Information

The City of New York is an inclusive equal opportunity employer committed to recruiting and retaining a diverse workforce and providing a work environment that is free from discrimination and harassment based upon any legally protected status or protected characteristic, including but not limited to an individual's sex, race, color, ethnicity, national origin, age, religion, disability, sexual orientation, veteran status, gender identity, or pregnancy.